The Nursery Toys

Are finally sanitized and organized... or at least they were!Our ward has 3 nursery groups. Among the first items of business in my new calling was to clean those toys! I've only so cleaned 2 of the 3 rooms, but feel like things are looking a lot better. I should have had before and after photos, but alas, I wasn't that organized!
This next one is the only photo I could find of this closet, but obviously, this is not completely finished. It looks better now with the top all cleared off.
Brooklyn and Ian were good helpers. They pretty much tasted all the toys and didn't get sick. That doesn't mean I dirtied a bajillion disinfectant wipes in the process. We even had a slumber party with one set of large-scale legos while they dried off in our bathroom one night after getting a good tubbie!

A Cake to Decorate

We have the sweetest neighbor, Jen. who made this cake just for Brooklyn. I have to admit, we felt pretty special to have such a fancy, original treat made for us, I mean, Brooklyn!The cake was like a fish tank, and Brooklyn got to decorate it with a look-alike of her fish Zoe as well as several other realistic salt-water sea creatures. (Zoe has replaced Cookie, who bit the dust long ago. Brooklyn will gladly share the details, if you ever want them.) Here is a pic. of Brooklyn and Zoe.
Below is the final product of the cutest ever fish cake. Try to ignore messed-up hairdo involving small braids, that's a whole different story.
Even the finger-lickin' faux-fondant was soooo good! Thanks Jen! That was such a thoughtful and wonderful thing for you to do! You and your fellow sculptor, Derek are amazingly talented!
We enjoyed every last bite of it! And a good portion of the fondant, too!

Guilty!

I had no idea what she was up to. Was she looking for something on the ground? Was she hurt?I don't even remember what she was trying to hide, but she must have felt pretty guilty about it to assume this position. I'm pretty sure it was food-related. She didn't get "busted," but I had a good laugh.

Clippy-Crazed

We were feeling very creative and adventurous with the hairdo this particular morning...

Maybe it was more like we just wanted to be bang-free for a day. Oh yes, and Brooklyn requested to wear all the "teeny-tiny, itty-bitty" clips from when she was a baby.

Of course, we couldn't leave out a picture of Desi's Beauty Salon's #1 fan.
Stephen says he likes pictures with this view of the kids, because it's exactly the perspective we usually have of them. Funny.

Sidewalk Art, Anyone?

Our neighbors even joined the fun on this one. We first drew one of Brooklyn's friends, then I traced Brooklyn, then we traced Ian and Ellie (Ellie is a month younger than Ian.)
Later that day when Stephen returned from work, the artwork expanded even more to include an outline of me and one of him. Pretty hillarious. I commented that I looked like a green monster. Of course, Brooklyn repeated quoted me on that one a few times throughout the day. So Stephen tried to "beautify" and enliven me by adding some awesome hair. Actually, I looked like a broom head, so he wasn't too far off...
Stephen looked like a tall basketball player. I'll try to get those pic's on the camera. It's funny because all 5 of our other neighbors have walked on these murals now for the past couple of weeks or more. I keep meaning to wash them off with some water, but.... they're slowly fading anyway.

Let's Pretend

That we have a backyard.... aaah!
Just don't eat the mushrooms!

This area is just next to the ice-skating rink located in the mall that we live right next to. It's a fun place to blow bubbles, ride the wagon, and read books on a home-made (by Evelyn) blanket. When the space is empty and we need an outing, we like to pretend it is our own private backyard.

"B"

Back to school means back to good ol' learning times!Instead of learning letters in the order of the alphabet, I decided to first focus on the letters in Brooklyn's name. They should interest her more because of the relevance (not that she has lacked interest in any letters anyway) and my goal is to get her to write her name independently soon. Currently she can only write the two "o's" and the "l" (She can spell it as a chant that I made up already.)

So "B" was first. We made a collage of all the things we could fine around the house that began with that letter. Triple points for the book because it's title is Bonjour Butterfly! The two "b's" on the plate are made with black beans. I think she's really picking it up because she now points out letters in signs just like she has been doing with numbers. (She especially seems to notice the numbers on speed limit signs.) As we walk through the mall, she points to letters on signs, it's like a whole new world has opened up to her, now that these symbols are part of a standard code. It's pretty cool. I remember how jazzed I was when I learned to read and all the things on signs finally made sense to me.